Dog Politics

‘In this brilliant and detailed text, Mariam Motamedi Fraser systematically challenges the apparent common sense of “species stories” which presume a naturalised relationality and entanglement between humans and dogs. Dog politics understands these stories of relationality – found in everyday culture, scientific studies and in much recent posthumanist theorisation – as political in nature, making note of their persistence, their extent and their power. Motamedi Fraser reminds readers that stories around species inform regimes of domination and violence: relevant to the lives of dogs, these discourses have material effects for political relations between bodies, whether this is in the family home, as part of training regimes, at the puppy farm or in the animal shelter. Dog politics thus offers an overdue and unflinching intervention into the study of ‘species’ as a political category, its implicit anthropocentricism, and attendant material and epistemic violence. Importantly, Dog politics points readers towards a fundamental and critical question for animal studies and posthumanism: “What does it mean to actually work towards freedom for the animals we are entangled with?”’

Dinesh Wadiwel, Associate Professor, University of Sydney